East of Eden: Lee Stories
by P. Yorick
Summary: A series of short stories about Lee from Steinbeck's East of Eden.
1. Chapter 1

Train Tracks and Photographs

He had set out with all intention, of course. It'd been hard to face the twin's lack of interest in his departure. It would have been nice to see a good-bye smile, a hug, but he hadn't really expected more. It had been Adam's bewildered desperation and lost look that made it worse. Unwanted regret was starting to haze Lee's resolution. He squared his shoulders, shifting from foot to foot in the crowded train station. The twins would be fine so long as Adam remembered to feed them. The house would fall apart at first but he was sure that when Adam hired someone else...Lee mind went to a loose seam in one of Adam's shirts. He had forgotten to mend it, and it was sure to go unnoticed. A shrill whistle sounded as the steam-spewing train pulled in.

"Express to San Francisco leaving in ten minutes! Boarding now!"

Lee settled on a hard bench in third-class between an old man and pale girl with rough hands. A family had piled onto the bench across; tanned and calloused father, old-beyond-her-years mother, a handful of grubby children clinging to skirts and hands. Lee sighed; there was no denying that he would feel some nostalgia for his life here. He had grown too comfortable in it. He had memorized the marks on the counter tops in his kitchen, had oiled the doors that stuck, and identified the floorboards that creaked under tiptoes. He had seen the twins shaping into the men they would become; the joyous madness within Aron and the stormy passion in Cal. He had learned how to nurse a man back to health, how to mourn the death of a friend, how to hate a woman he only knew for a few brief months. Lee set his jaw and withdrew a book from his basket, fanning the pages as the train lurched into motion. A small photograph tumbled out of the pages into his lap. He knew the print well, a framed version hung in the sitting room back at the house.

The photograph was taken a few weeks after they moved into town. Adam was outside on the front steps of the house chatting with the photographer, and Lee was attempting to get the twins into semi-decent condition while simultaneously boiling potatoes for dinner. Aron's stockings were loose around his knees and Cal's hair was a mess of cowlicks. Lee inspected them with a critical eye as he checked a potato with a fork; there wasn't much else he could do at this point. Putting a lid on the simmering pot, he herded the twins out the front door and sat them on the steps. Lee stepped back, noticed a smudge above Aron's eyebrow and scrubbed at the grumbling boy's face with a wetted finger. Satisfied with the result, Lee turned to leave. There was a cough behind him and a tug on the hem of his pants, and he turned to see Adam's confused face looking up at him.

"Where are you going Lee?"

"...I'm need to make dinner Ada– Mister Trask." Lee leaned in closer to whisper, watching the bored photographer from the corner of his eye, "What do you need me here for?"

"Well you're in it too!" Adam tugged Lee down beside him, "Now hold still," a quick glare towards the twins "It'll blur if we fidget."

"Adam..." Lee trailed off.

"Ha! At a loss for words for once!" Adam grinned, "Don't you go thinking you aren't family." Lee gave a weak smile and his mind went for a moment to the potatoes on the stove. They would boil over, in all likelihood.

The photographer puffed on a cigarette stub, "I ain't got all day folks!"

"Yes, yes! Cal! Aron! Sit still! Everyone smile now."

The prints arrived a week later. Cowlicks, loose stockings, and bewildered smile preserved in silver nitrate. Lee had taken one of the smaller prints but had never found the time to frame it.

Lee felt something wet sliding down his cheek as the train gained speed. He wiped his face and stared at the inexplicable tear on his fingertip. He was not supposed to feel this way. Cal, Aron, and Adam should have joined the procession of families he'd served over the years; a sequence culminating in his bookshop, his own life, his own home. Panic rose in his throat as the California hills sped by. Somehow he had come to love the Trasks. He loved Aron and Cal's eternal bickering, the maternal trust they placed in his hands, their moments of quiet affection. He could not stand the thought of anyone else making their food, tucking them into bed, treating their cuts and scratches, watching them stumble through adolescence and grow into men. Lee's fists tightened as he stared at the other face in the photograph. The familiar smile and tired eyes he had seen every day for the past ten years and knew as well as the lines on the back of his hands. Adam, who stirred in Lee dark emotions he had avoided with moderate success for years. Lee had known since the night that he fished a bullet out of Adam's shoulder and scrubbed the blood from the floorboards that the Trasks would be the last family he would serve. He had watched Adam recover from the deep wound Cathy left, regain strength and fortitude as the twins grew. All the while Lee had tried to stay uninvolved, to keep his focus on a future that was his own. But he hadn't been able to stop the strange connection he and Adam developed; a relationship neither could define nor acknowledge the true depth of. They were tangled in the shadows of Samuel, Charles, and Cathy, but Lee loved that confused, wonderful, broken-hearted man.

Lee slammed his book shut, startling the passengers on either side of him. "Damn it all!" Lee muttered under his breath. It wouldn't do to walk back in the door less than a day after he left. It was clear that he would be putting down roots and holding fast to the land with his new family but he had to have some finality, some sense of closure. Perhaps he should consult his family in the city. Perhaps he should take a day to stare out at the San Francisco Bay and wonder at what his life had become. Perhaps he should give Adam a good dose of perspective on child-rearing… Lee returned the book and photograph to the basket and leaned back into the hard wooden bench, fingers laced on his lap and a smile on his face. The sea outside his window was smooth as glass and blue as heaven, and Lee had a family waiting for him.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a quiet fall day, and Lee was making a pie in the kitchen. It had been a few weeks since he had returned from San Francisco, vague bookshop visions having disolved before the train passed Santa Cruz. The back door slammed open and the sound of tramping feet heralded the twins in. Well, one at least. Cal burst into the kitchen, pant legs coated with dirt and a new hole in the knee of his stocking. Lee sighed to himself, he would have to mend that later.

"Hey Lee. Whatcha making?"

"Don't even look at that pie. It's for dessert tonight. If you're hungry get an apple from the pantry." Cal sulked over to the cupboard and retrieved a bruised apple. His attempts to clean it on his pants only left the apple dirtier. Lee plucked the apple with a distracted air and cleaned it in a dishtowel before handing it back.

"You should go wash up Cal, dinner will be in a few hours."

"Mhmh." Cal grunted through the mouthful of apple. He swallowed and looked at the apple with an air of distaste. "Lee, I've got a question for you."

"If it's about the slingshot the answer is no, you're not getting it back. That poor cat is traumatized enough as it is."

"Nah, not about that. I was wondering..." Cal's words sounded stilted and rehearsed, like he was repeating them from memory, "...what is your real name?"

Lee was too stunned to answer for a moment, "...What?"

"Your name can't just be _Lee_, so what is it really?" Cal took a thoughtful bite of his apple. Lee paused and contemplated the boy, who had already been distracted by a game of kick-the-can outside the window.

Lee rubbed his temples as only the long-suffering can. "You go tell your father that if he wants to know something, he should _ask me himself_." He emphasized the last part, making sure it was heard. Adam appeared a few seconds later, looking sulky. Lee turned towards a cowed Cal.

"Just go outside Cal, I'll take care of the apple." The boy was gone in a flash of dust and untucked shirt-tails. Lee cut off the bit section of the apple and popped it in his mouth, incorporating the remainder into his pie filling. Adam coughed.

"How did you know?"

"First mistake was using Cal," said Lee, though a mouthful of apple. "I might have fallen for Aron but Cal has as much interest in my name as he does in my copy of _Aurelius_." Lee turned towards Adam, "I also heard the floorboards creaking out in the hall. Do you want some coffee?"

"Damn, I knew I should have waited for Aron!" Adam collapsed into one of the creaky wooden chairs. Lee wiped his hands and poured two cups from the pot he had taken to keeping warm though the day and sat down across from Adam at the narrow kitchen table, resting his elbows on the scarred wood.

"So why do you want to know my full name? You've never shown much of an interest before."

"I...it's for a document I'm writing." Adam stared at his tin cup of coffee. Lee blinked.

"Adam, you dictate all your documents to me. I haven't seen you write anything yourself for years."

"It's something private!"

"If my name's going to be in it, I feel like I should know what it is!"

"Lee, I– I can't–" Adam was alternating his gaze between the stove knobs, the pile of chopped apples, and his own right hand.

"Can't what, Adam?" Lee raised an eyebrow and took a sip of coffee. For a few moments they sat in silence, the Adam's fingers nervously twitching on his cup.

"It's for my goddamn will, allright!" Adam slammed his fist down on the table, his cheeks reddening as he met Lee's gaze. Lee, for once, was struck dumb.

"Since you came back for good...well, I'm rewriting my will, and you're in it. But I need your full legal name." Adam stared even harder into his coffee.

"Adam...I don't know what to say."

"Maybe your name?" Adam's sheepish grin was almost too much, Lee found himself wanting to laugh and cry at the same time.

"You don't need to feel obligated to give me anything Adam."

"Don't give me this bullshit again Lee. You're family!" Adam looked more defiant now, "Most of the money's going to the boys, but I'm...I'm leaving you as the main holder of the house. I'm also specifying that you're to raise the boys if I pass away when they're young. You can manage their money until they're old enough and you won't be kicked out of the house by any lawyers or anything." Adam rubbed his left thumb against his cup, tracing small circles in the metal. "I want to make sure you're safe too, after I'm gone." Lee could feel a lump in his throat. This wasn't the first time he had been in the will of a family he served but what he had been left previously was always something in exchange for his "years of dedicated service." This was the first time he was in a will as a family member. Adam was thinking about Lee's safety and the safety of the two people they cared for most in the world. Lee smiled weakly.

"You always manage to surprise me Adam. I can't tell you what this means to me."

"So you'll give me your name then?" Adam looked eager to change the subject, these emotional moments tended to reveal a turbulent tension that neither wanted to delve into too much. Lee laughed dissipating the thick air that seemed to be filling the kitchen.

"You couldn't pronounce it if I told you, I'll have to write it down."

"Try me."

"It's Lee Qiquiang spelled with two q's."

"...Maybe you should write it down." Lee retrieved a slip of paper and a pen.

"Chee-chee-aing?" Adam looked hopeful.

"No, Adam. Not even close." Lee smiled, "Why do you want to know how to say it anyway?"

"It just feels odd to always call you Lee. You started calling me Adam a long time ago but you've always just been Lee."

"If you wanted a first name to call me, you could always just use my English name." Lee passed the slip of paper to Adam, who grimaced when he saw the letters written in Lee's precise hand.

"English name?"

"It's getting pretty common, especially with Chinese who go to universities. We need something the professors can pronounce when they take attendance. I haven't used mine in years, but you can if you want."

"What was it?"

"Seth. Seth Lee." Lee didn't especially dislike the name, but it had old memories that left a bad taste in his mouth. It was a reminder of the person he tried for so many years to be, just as his Chinese name reminded him of the person he had desperately tried to escape from.

"Seth." Adam tested out the name, with more success this time. He thought for a moment, then shook his head and stood, tucking the slip of paper in his pocket. He leaned over and clapped a hand on Lee's skinny shoulder.

"Thanks for telling me, but I think I'll just stick to Lee for now. It seems to fit you more." Lee smiled as he cleared the coffee cups from the table and turned back towards his pie.

"It's all I've ever wanted to be."


End file.
